Bloomington Gold

This year Indianapolis was chosen to host Bloomington Gold. This show represents for me all the things I dislike about car shows, chrome, cars that are never driven, wax type discussions, etc. I am interested in the performance side and while I respect the whole 1 of 3, 100 point car that is Bloomington Gold, I would not have driven 50+ miles to go.

I was not even aware that it was being hosted here this year, the advertising apparently was done mainly through newspapers, I saw nothing on the local news or heard any radio ads. One of my reports at work, left a newspaper on my desk which spoke about 1000+ corvettes participating in a "Gold Tour", After reading the article, the proposed route and it being at the brickyard I had a reason to go.

The event was scheduled Thursday - Saturday June 25-27 with the Gold Tour ending the event Saturday night. We arrived mid morning Saturday and were only there a few hours when the vendors started packing up to leave. There were rides being given by Ron Fellows group driving brand new Z06's but by the time I figured it out it was too late to participate. We did get to ride in the Ridetech Z06's on the autocross course.

At the autocross course Lingenfelter had a second display with this awesome Karl Kustom Z06. While there were a lot of very impressive corvettes there, this was among my favorites.

Couple of Z06's in the parking lot with handicap tags, the blue one is a stage one aero and the yellow a stage 2.  I did not see a stage 3 this weekend.

We waited in line for about 45 minutes to sign up for the Gold Tour, for some reason they did not allow online signups. That evening it took a little over an hour to get everyone lined up and start the Gold Tour.

The tour route was planned for just over 41 miles in which they had every intersection we passed through blocked off.  The police were very active in pulling stray vehicles out of the line of corvettes and actually had major intersections blocked off for well over an hour as a line over five miles long consisting of 1,000+ corvettes went through.

Once the tour started we entered the track and did one lap (limited to 65mph). I really had no anticipation of driving around the brickyard but admittedly once you are doing it, it is very cool.

The last two shots were taken by a co-worker as we entered the Metropolis parking lot.

There are a few videos of the Gold Tour posted on the net, this is probably one of the better clarity / views out there. Tania and I are center frame at 10:40.